


The Stars Are Fire

by below_the_starry_clusters_bright



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, Angst, Detective Noir, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Human AU, Insanity, Unrequited Love, i am not so much with the fluff, well minor fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-01 12:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2773046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/below_the_starry_clusters_bright/pseuds/below_the_starry_clusters_bright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lokane drabble/short oneshot series, all unconnected unless mentioned otherwise. Prompts welcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Valhalla

**Author's Note:**

> Inspiration: Sin City / Gotham / Peaky Blinders / Do I Wanna Know? - Arctic Monkeys

 The empty club smells like sin. Thick vapours of cigar smoke, perfume, and alcohol brewed before Jane was even born still hang in the air, waiting to reclaim those rich enough and foolish enough to come back again. There are no windows in this self-contained realm, no clocks, nothing to remind patrons that it’s long past the hour of respectability. Jane supposes that’s the point. Those who frequent the club leave their morality in the office or the courtroom and only shuck it back onto their shoulders the following morning when the work day begins. Jane reminds herself of the comforting weight of the watch against her wrist. She is not a prisoner to time like all the others who step into Valhalla.

 The call to the station came in this morning from some well-meaning passer-by who stumbled upon the bodies. Maybe they were from out of town, maybe they were still drunk from the night before, but either way they were ignorant of the city’s unwritten rule: Valhalla’s business is its own. If something needs dealing with, Loki Odinson will deal with it. Otherwise, it’s permitted to go unchecked or continued.  
  
 Usually when a call comes in regarding Valhalla, a cop will drop by the bar and sell innocence’s weight in drinks, drugs, or companionship. They leave several hours later, with whiskey on their breath and a collar stained with lipstick, prepared to swear on the Bible that Valhalla is clear of all wrongdoings. The female cops are as bad if not worse; Loki turns the full power of his charm on them instead of foisting them off onto his staff, and there are few women out there who can resist his attention.  
  
 Jane takes another step into the club. She’s one of the immune ones.  
  
 Loki sits at one of the tables near the stage, poring over documents probably dangerous enough to put him away for life in any halfway decent city. An empty glass sits by his side, its rim glinting in the overhead lights. His long legs are tucked away beneath the table, though Jane can tell that they, like the rest of him, are clad in one of the expensive suits he favours. Given his immaculacy despite the early hour, Jane wonders if he got up early or simply never went to bed.  
  
 The man escorting Jane inside – six foot five with shoulders broad enough to swing from – stops at the edge of the bar and expects Jane to do the same.  
  
 “Sir,” he announces, his deep voice carrying over the empty tables and chairs. “Detective Jane Foster to see you.”  
  
 Loki’s hands still over a stack of papers. He regains himself less than a second later, standing in a fluid movement and walking over to Jane with the kind of dangerous grace she has come to associate with Valhalla. She was right about his suit; it looks brand new.  
  
 “Detective Foster.” Loki smiles like the Devil would smile: bright and beautiful and showing just enough teeth to serve as a reminder that he could tear her throat out. “Always a pleasure.” He dismisses the bodyguard with a nod and then strolls behind the bar. “Would you care for a drink?”  
  
 Jane frowns. “It’s nine a.m.”  
  
 Loki’s low chuckle reminds Jane that in a society which finds everything acceptable, there are few taboos left. Debauchery is a commitment which does not abide time constraints.

Loki glances up at her as he pours himself a generous measure of whiskey, his amusement still evident. “As comforting as it is to know that you can tell the time, Detective, that isn’t what I asked.”  
  
 “No.”  
  
 The refusal comes with more bite than is necessary. Loki, his sensibilities hardly delicate enough to be offended, quirks an eyebrow in a  _suit yourself_  gesture and downs the drink in one. His expression does not so much as flicker, although Jane knows the strength of the scotch. She watches him pour another one, and thanks God that he’s at least a  _functioning_  alcoholic.  
  
 “Two people died here last night,” Jane says, diving straight in. “A gunshot to the head, execution-style. Given the latest word, I’m guessing drugs deal gone wrong.”  
  
 Loki purses his lips. “You’ll have to forgive me. The latest word?”  
  
 “The latest drug,” Jane amends. She doesn’t buy his affected innocence, not for one moment. “Idunn. They say it makes you feel invincible. For a short while, anyway, until it triggers extreme heart palpitations and short-term psychosis. You’ve been selling it.”  
  
 “Hm.” Loki takes a sip from his glass, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m afraid you’ll find that rather difficult to prove.”  
  
 She’ll find it damn near impossible to prove, and even harder to secure a conviction. Loki could have shot the men himself in front of an entire courtroom and then turned the gun onto the jury, and still receive a hundred dollar fine at most. His stranglehold on the city turns justice into a mockery. It’s one of the many reasons Jane detests him.  
  
 She leans forward, stopping just short of brushing her shirt against the top of the bar. It’s been cleared and cleaned to a high standard since last night, though Jane still doesn’t want her clothes anywhere near it. Even the memory of its stickiness would cling in a way that no amount of washes could get out.  
  
 “I know you have a basement in this place,” she says.  
  
 Loki inclines his head. “Hardly a crime. Assuming the original builders had planning permission.”  
  
 He shifts towards her. It would be an imperceptible move but for the fact that Jane has become attuned to a predator’s stalk. Rather than step back, she fixes him with a challenging look that makes the officers down at the station squirm.  
  
 “So what’s down there?”  
  
 Loki, of course, is unaffected. “It’s a space for our more private clientele.”  
  
 Jane narrows her eyes. She spends as little time in Valhalla as possible, although she knows the layout of the place well. “You already have a VIP area.”  
  
 “Which is suitable for the latest reality star or politician’s mistress, but discretion is one of our most valued assurances.” His tone is smooth, like he’s rolling out the persuasive lines he's considering using in an advertising campaign. “When guests of actual importance visit us, we place them away from the crowds.”  
  
 Jane straightens up and imbues as much authority into her stance as she can, given that she’s almost a foot smaller than the man she’s trying to intimidate.  
  
 “I want to see it.”  
  
 “Come back with a warrant and I will be more than happy to give you the tour.” At her frown, Loki smiles. “Did you think it would be that easy, Detective? Perhaps you hoped your badge would give you a right that you, without a warrant, lack.”  
  
 Jane doesn’t deny it. It was a longshot anyway, but all she wants is for Loki to realise that there is one person in this city who is not willing to look the other way in the face of his repeated crimes. He needs to know that she will not give up, that this crime might not end in jail time but one crime, one day, will. All she has to do it wait. Frustration burns through her until she’s tempted to knock back a glass of two of the whiskey she shunned.  
  
 “These walls have never bent to the whims of a warrant and they will not start now.” Loki moves from behind the bar and strides back over to his earlier seat at the table laden with documents. “You cannot acquire a warrant because there is insubstantial evidence. There is insubstantial evidence because, as ever, the crimes you accuse Valhalla of did not occur.”  
  
 Jane follows him. She ignores the empty seat he nudges towards her with the tip of his boot and instead crosses her arms and scowls down at him.  
  
 “So you’re denying that two people died here last night?”  
  
 “I am.”  
  
 “And you’re denying that drugs are being sold and consumed on the premises of Valhalla?”  
  
 “I am.” Loki’s easy smile makes no attempt to convey innocence. “I would tell you if I knew anything, Detective, you know that. You know all my secrets.” He gathers up the sheaves of paper and places them in a briefcase, leaving the table bare. “You just can’t prove any of them.”


	2. the hold that the hand regrets (the heart remembers forever)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: startraveller776's “How do you stop loving someone when they stop loving you?” challenge / Insanity / Asgardian!Jane / Do You by Carina Round: "The hurt that the head forgets, the heart will always remember. The hold that the hand regrets, the heart remembers forever."
> 
> Thanks for your feedback and prompts, keep them coming!

Loki is dragged back to Asgard in chains and draws a curious crowd of nobles in the palace courtyard. They whisper and stare and praise Odin that they will finally have something decent to gossip about over their next feast. Loki would tear their throats out with his teeth if he could.  
  
 He hasn’t seen Jane since he fell (/jumped/was pushed, he has memories of all three occurrences but his memories are not to be trusted, not since Thanos, not since falling/jumping/being pushed) but he picks her out in the baying crowd as easily as if she was the only person around for miles. In all the ways that matter, she is.  
  
 She shouldn’t be standing out in the open like this, not unguarded, not when she’s so breakable (and oh he’s  _seen_  how breakable she is, seen it a thousand times in a thousand different ways thanks to Thanos) – and, yes, good, there is a wariness about her as she stares at him. Good to be wary, good to be alert  _skin torn from flesh eyes plucked out defiled abused all because of him all because he loves her and gods he loves her he loves her still even after everything even after_

 “Come, brother.”  
  
 Thor’s hand clenches around Loki’s shoulder as he urges him forward. Loki ignores him, walking slowly, as slowly as he can, delaying the moment where Jane is lost from his line of sight and he can no longer assure himself that the visions Thanos inflicted have no bearing on real life.  
  
 There’s horror in Jane’s expression, a familiar enough reaction but out of place on her features, and it jars Loki. She should not fear him. He saved her from Thanos, does she not remember that? No, that was in a vision.  _No_ , that was in a dream after a vision in which she had died terribly. But if Loki just  _explains_  to her  
  
 He wrenches out of Thor’s grip and takes a step forward. The Asgardians gasp and scatter like ants ( _boot, no quarrel_ ) but Loki has no time for them. They’re pathetic, traitorous, not Jane, not Jane who loves him and cares for him and quiets the rage inside him with a single smile, not Jane who now shakes her head, drops her gaze, and takes a step back.  
  
 Away from him.  
  
 No.  
  
 There are tears on her cheeks but  _it’s alright_  he wants to shout, damn this gag, damn everything keeping him from Jane, does she not know does she not understand how she anchored him in those months spent adrift how can she  _not_ how can  
  
 In Thor’s hold once more, Loki is shoved forward into the palace. What he always thought would lie ahead of him now lies behind, separated by rejection and the echoes of love.


	3. Dentist Prompt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Lokane at the dentist. Messed around with the prompt a little here, hope you’ll forgive me. Happy Holidays, everyone!

 Loki barely has time to throw up a protective shield around himself and Jane before the blast blows them through the front window of a dentist’s surgery. The magic cushions the impact of the falling bricks and dust but doesn’t do much for the awkward way Jane lands against the edge of the long recliner chair. 

 “Jane?”

 Loki’s worried voice breaks through the high-pitched shriek singing through Jane’s ears.

 “I’m fine,” she groans, watching the last of the debris fall in a wide berth of the shield.

 He’s on his feet before Jane can even move. She takes his outstretched hand and lets him heave her up, but breaks contact the moment she’s on her feet. Loki’s lips thin but he doesn’t comment. Jane feels his magic stretch to cover the room, fortifying and cloaking everything in invisibility. The ongoing sounds of the fight outside become muffled until they fade completely.

 Jane gives herself a second for the haze in her mind to subside before scrambling across the room to set her laptop down on a smooth surface. Her heart pounds and doesn’t slow until the screen flickers into life. The files she had been transferring have stalled and need rebooting, but miraculously she’s still connected to the hotspot. With all the alien tech in the half-abandoned city, Wi-Fi has been temperamental at best. Even wandering out in search of a signal had turned into the kind of epic quest that Jane was not allowed to undertake alone.

  _Probably for the best_ , she thinks as she spares Loki a glance. She’s glad of his presence, even if she had originally protested his company after what had happened between them the night before.

 “Focus,” Jane mutters to herself. She’ll send the files to whichever members of S.H.I.E.L.D have an active connection to receive them, and then she’ll go back to the Avengers Tower and forget that these last two days have happened at all.

 As the minutes go by she becomes vaguely aware of Loki wandering about, prodding the equipment with a disdainful look. She ignores him as best she can, until:

 “Is this a torture chamber?”

 Despite the tension, Jane holds back a grin. “In a sense. It’s a dentist’s office.” She types for another few seconds before realising that she ought to explain further. She looks up to see Loki watching her. “A dentist looks at people’s teeth.”

 He scoffs. “Such a thing requires a drill?”

 “Sometimes, yeah.”

 On an abstract level, Jane knows that Loki is still assimilating to life on Earth. He’s only a few months into his redemptive efforts and his status as a semi-Avenger is still fresh, but he quickly picked up the basics of technology and understands idioms and slang (even if he flatly refuses to use them himself). That he should be baffled by the everyday life of mortals shouldn’t be such a shock, given that he came to New York weeks after its siege began, but Jane still forgets that he has no reason to understand things like the horrors of the dentist’s chair.

 “Mortals’ teeth decay a lot faster than you’d expect,” Jane says. “Especially with all the sugar in our food.”

 Loki flicks a tray full of dusty tools. His disdain is clear, and Jane makes the mistake of attributing it to their surroundings until he speaks.

 “So, I gather we’re not going to talk about it.”

 Jane’s hands pause over her keyboard. “I don’t know what you mean.”

 “Ah.” There’s a thin smile on Loki’s lips. “I shall endeavour to make the next time more memorable, then.”

 Jane resumes her typing, hitting the keys harder than necessary. “There won’t be a next time.”

 The rattling of dentistry instruments overrides the click of the keys. “Is this a similar sentiment to when you told me there wouldn’t be a _first_ time, or do you actually mean it now?”

 The hard edge to his voice lets Jane know her denials hurt him, even if he won’t show it. She sighs and watches the slow progress of the bar onscreen.

 Last night, Loki had knocked on Jane’s bedroom door, bloodied and exhausted, wearing the faint ghost of the smile he only wore around her. The Avengers had been gone for three days on a mission which was supposed to take them an hour at the most. Their communications were down, none of the S.H.I.E.L.D field agents had reported any sightings, and Jane was climbing the walls with worry. Rather than visions of kind blue eyes and a wide smile, her thoughts had been occupied with swathes of green and black and the sharp intelligence which pleased and infuriated her in equal measure.

 Relief at the sight of him had propelled Jane forwards and upwards, crushing her lips against his to stop herself from screaming at him. Her fingers scraped against the metallic surface of his armor and came away covered in someone else’s blood. Surprise had gripped Loki for a second before he returned the kiss with a bruising pressure, tilting her head backwards with one hand and pressing the other into the small of her back.

 He pulled back just enough to murmur her name with quiet reverence. As the breath carrying her name landed on Jane’s lips, her thoughts caught up with her actions. She wrenched away and raised a shaking hand to her lips, horrified at the implications of what she had done. Loki had always been adept at reading her expressions, and his own features fell as he saw the wide-eyed shock in her eyes. How he managed to look vulnerable in bloodstained armor, Jane will never know.

 “Jane –”

 “You should go.”

 The rejection sent Loki back a step. He regained himself quickly, drawing himself up to his full height and papering over the cracks in his bravado with a cold veneer. Dressed for the battlefield, he easily filled the doorframe.

 “The moment we arrived back at the Tower, I came straight to you,” he said. “Where is Thor?”

 The rhetorical question hung in the air long after he had left.

 “I shouldn’t have done it,” Jane says, bringing herself out of the memory. “Things with me and Thor haven’t officially ended yet, and he deserves better.”

 “Whatever you shared with Thor has long since faded.” Loki sidles up behind her. His sheer presence is a distraction, particularly when he leans down to murmur in her ear: “You can’t be afraid to let go for something new.”

 Jane wonders if he knows how his low timbre makes her shiver. His hand rests against her hip, the feather-light touch born half from seduction and half from uncertainty. Jane turns around, pressing her back against the countertop in an effort to afford the distance Loki will not grant her. A smile plays about his lips as he takes in Jane’s stubborn expression.

 “Can we do this later?” she asks, glaring at him. Their proximity is such that she has to lean back to look him in the eye. “Maybe somewhere other than a dentist’s?”

 “Somewhere you can avoid the topic completely?” Loki raises an eyebrow. “No, I think now is the perfect time.” His gaze drops to her lips with deliberate slowness. Jane’s stomach tightens in response. “Why did you kiss me?”

 “I…” The lies Jane had been considering tripped over one another on her tongue as Loki lifts his eyes back to hers. She reads the confusion there and the return of that terrible vulnerability he tries so hard to hide. “I was afraid you weren’t coming back.”

 “Would it matter so much if I hadn't?”

 “Yes.”

 The confession, whispered though it is, brings the reverent light back into Loki’s eyes. He cradles Jane’s cheek with one of his hands and leans down, slowly enough for Jane to pull away if she wishes. She doesn’t. His lips brush hers, gently at first and then more insistent as he coaxes her to open up to him. Jane closes her eyes and loses herself in the pleasure she was tired of denying she wanted from him.

 She draws a sharp breath as his hands reach under her thighs to lift her onto the counter. He stands between her parted legs, his kisses becoming more urgent until each of Jane’s senses are consumed by him.

 A bleep announces the successful file transfer.

 Loki, his eyes half-lidded, draws away. “You should –”

 “Yeah.”

 Jane curls her fingers around the lapels of his surcoat to pull him closer and kiss him again.


	4. let me out (it's hell when you're around)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration: Rootless Tree - Damien Rice / "fuck you, fuck you, I love you"

 It’s a nightly climb out of the pit. Every rung Loki grips to heave himself up is formed by convictions and promises he repeats like a mantra of madness: he is over her; he is content with being her friend; he loves her only as the sister-in-law she will one day become. The climb lasts throughout the night and up until the moment he sees Jane again. Her laugh, her scent, even the scantest glimpse of her is enough to dissolve the ladder from beneath him and send him hurtling back down. He spends all day wallowing, only to begin his ascent anew the moment she leaves his presence.

  
 While the walls of the pit are adorned with the reasons he should not love her – a list he memorises with each nightly hike – the floor is covered with memories whose warmth he clings to in place of a blanket. He can hear the exact pitch of her excitement when she reaches a breakthrough in her latest project, although he has never been able to replicate it in himself and has never heard it from anyone else. Once, she had flung her arms around his neck in pure joy at one such discovery. By the time he had thought to wrap his arms around her waist, she was already letting go.

  
 Existence at the bottom of the pit can turn violent. More than once, Loki has set fire to his memories and burned his bridges in such fury and resignation that it had taken Jane weeks to speak to him again. Her distance angered him further; she only suffered through a thin reed of smoke and flickers of light, while he was trapped in the middle of a burning inferno. A smile or a kind word could have doused the flames, but instead he was left to feel the rungs to his freedom blister under his fingers.

  
 Other lovers come and go, discontent with being dragged down only to watch Loki’s attempts to scale the wall to freedom. Loki sits back, stewing in jealousy, as they climb out of the pit with ease. They likely have their own traps to fall into, but Loki can conceive only of his own cage.

  
 Eventually, he stops trying to escape altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a venting exercise written in half an hour, apologies for mistakes. Still working on prompts, don't worry if you haven't seen yours yet. Thanks for your feedback so far!


End file.
